CANARY ISLANDS ENERGY CRISIS | Valbuena urges the State to resolve the power deficit by decree or express tender

In Tenerife and Gran Canaria a minimum of 200 additional megawatts are requiredequivalent to 20% of the currently installed power, and, according to Valbuena, the Government of the Canary Islands has proposed viable solutions to the Ministry to which it has not responded in writing, although it has conveyed that it considers that they do not comply with the legislation.

The alarm about energy limitations was raised by the operator Red Eléctrica on September 29, 2021Valbuena told EFE this Saturday in response to a statement from the Ministry.

In that document, the Ministry states that the selection of temporary emergency measures is the responsibility of the autonomous government and it is the Ministry that authorizes the coverage of the costs, as it did in a draft ministerial order.

For Valbuena, a first problem that arises in this complicated dispute is that The required measures are not temporary due to an emergencybut structural.

For this reason, in parallel, the first steps have been taken to launch a competition for the installation of new equipment, the bases of which have been published and which is in the allegations phase, but whose award may take five years.

Valbuena has pointed out that the government of Canary Islands contacted up to four companies willing to install the equipment as soon as possible for the production of the 200 megawatts that avoid the risk of zero energy, an infrastructure that, at least, takes a year to start up.

The problem for these companies is that the draft ministerial order only commits payment for one year and is limited to its actual use, which means they cannot assume the cost of tens of millions of euros that an installation that would be impossible for them could entail. amortize.

Furthermore, the company that came to the aid of the Government of the Canary Islands with these 200 megawatt equipment would not be able to participate in the regular tender, the rules of which have already been published, because it is not allowed to compete with power already installed.

For Valbuena and for the previous Government of the Canary Islands, The solution would be for the Government of Spain will call an express tender for the award of those 200 megawatts that are now neededguaranteeing payment to the winning company and that it can participate in the normal tender.

Another option raised by the previous Government of the Canary Islands was for the central Executive to approve a royal decree law by which a company would be directly in charge of installing the 200 megawatts, guaranteeing the collection of all the costs it had to assume, as was done in 2018 taking advantage of the State Budget Law.

The problem, according to Valbuena’s explanations, is that the State believes that this solution is unviable because the European Union would not authorize this mechanism without competitive competition.

The previous Canary Islands Government, chaired by the PSOE, maintained, however, that authorization from the European Union was not necessary and that, in any case, this permission would be granted, since the Canary Islands were an outermost region.

The issue, Valbuena warns, is that the power deficit is real, that it affects 20% of the installed power and that, in the event of a possible total blackout under these conditions on islands such as Tenerife and Gran Canaria, the replacement of generating sets may take days or weeks.

And he warns that if this blackout were to occur, all the measures that are now being delayed would have to be quickly addressed, but at a much greater cost in economic and social terms or image for the archipelago, he warns.

“We cannot be afraid of what may happen, we must address the solution now,” warns the former head of the energy area.